The reaction, when it finally came for Rory McIlroy, was a convulsion, a sense of catharsis so overwhelming that it left him physically heaving. His face puce and his body shaking, he was so spent by the time he holed his four-foot birdie putt at the 18th for a first Green Jacket that he crumpled to the ground.
At last, the boy from Holywood has his Hollywood ending. For so long tormented here at Augusta, chasing the white whale of a career Grand Slam, he expiated the curse in thrilling, bewildering, stomach-churning style, completing the full set of golf’s greatest prizes by rallying from every improbable setback.
Truly, this was sport at its most monumental.
Rory McIlroy gave everything. #themasterspic.twitter.com/Iv38QeVTbm
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 13, 2025
Resilience feels inadequate as a description. This was sporting courage at its finest, a definitive rebuke to the idea that McIlroy could never overcome his fragility in sight of the finishing line. He had let so many auspicious positions slip since his last major triumph in 2014, but this was one chance he refused to relinquish.
Far from quailing under pressure, he strode towards it. He did not simply have to win the Masters, the one prize he had coveted above all else. He had to win it three times over, suppressing the malevolent voices inside his head by going on the attack under the greatest strain. At the 15th, the 17th, and again at the 18th, in a play-off you feared he would lose in his addled state to Justin Rose, he conjured golf from the gods.
With the light fading across Augusta National, McIlroy, resplendent in green, struggled to absorb the magnitude of the moment. First his voice quavered in the Butler Cabin, as he reflected on the sacrifices made in Northern Ireland by his mother Rosie and father Gerry to put him on this path to global glory, one of only six men in the sport ever to grasp the Grand Slam. And again he became tearful at the victory presentation as he caught sight of Poppy, his four-year-old daughter, watching alongside his wife, Erica. “Never give up on your dreams,” he told her.
The image of McIlroy as a fragile soul has been shattered. He is emotional, certainly. But as a competitor, McIlroy has shown beyond doubt that the frailties are exaggerated, holding his nerve just as history suggested he would wilt. He had suffered the most bruising back-nine ordeal, watching a five-shot lead dissolve in 25 minutes. Still he rallied, repeatedly, as if resolving that this time he would script a different ending. “I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” he said. “But the way I responded to the setbacks, I couldn’t be prouder of myself.”
The adoration greeting McIlroy on his walk back to the clubhouse was sincere. There is a reason why he is the most compelling player of his era, and it is because he is always utterly authentic. Unafraid to weep or to show how all-consuming the effort has been, he combines his phenomenal talent on the course with a deep thoughtfulness off it, articulating all the psychological turmoil that it has taken to join golf’s most exclusive gang of six.
When asked about the end of his 11-year major drought, he grinned wryly and said: “More like 14.” It was in 2011, after all, that he had leant in despair on his club to conceal his anguish, having hooked another drive deep into the Augusta pines to surrender a four-shot lead. Now, in 2025, he has the perfect counterpoint to that heartbreak, a victory as stirring and as rapturously received as any witnessed on these Arcadian fairways.
Even Fred Ridley, the Augusta chairman, acknowledged it was perhaps the finest Masters Sunday of all. And the drama sprang from a twist in the story that nobody had seen coming. Having walked off the 10th green five clear, daring to imagine that he could coast home, McIlroy descended into the type of tailspin he had dreaded.
The warning was sounded by his second to the 11th, which he squirted out beneath the overhanging branches and almost pulled straight into the water guarding the green. The ball stopped inches from the edge, limiting the damage to a single dropped shot. A reprieve?
Not if the next 25 minutes were any gauge, as the full mayhem of the Masters engulfed him. For the first time all tournament, McIlroy chose conservatism over attack, laying up at the long 13th as he looked to defend his advantage. Why, at this of all moments, did he not back his instinct? Only he could explain the inexplicable, watching with horror as his pitch, supposed to be the safe option, bounced right and dribbled into Rae’s Creek. A double-bogey ensued, Rose reached 11 under up ahead at the 16th, and in a heartbeat his cushion had vanished.
The bounce in his step gave way to bleakness. Where once he had been striping every drive down the middle, he began second-guessing himself, pushing his tee-shot at the 14th into the pine needles. Usually a wizard at these steepling escape shots, he looked helpless as this effort trickled off the front apron, leaving him a fiendish up-and-down that he could not convert. Where was his psychologist, Dr Bob Rotella, when he needed him?
There is nowhere quite like the Masters for making even the finest players feel hideously alone. All you are allowed, once you pass inside the ropes, is your caddie. For all the qualities of Harry Diamond, McIlroy’s childhood friend, there was little the man on the bag could say to soothe him in this situation. McIlroy could only rely on his own judgment, and as he sized up his second at the 15th, the equation would have shredded the nerves of a lesser mortal. To go for it was to risk another ghastly splash. To lay up was to risk retreating into his shell.
In the end, McIlroy gambled everything, arcing a beautiful high draw to within 10 feet of the flag. He missed the putt but still refused to compromise, producing the same soaring right-to-left flight with an eight-iron en route to a birdie at the 17th.
With a birdie on No. 17, Rory McIlroy takes the outright lead. #themasterspic.twitter.com/pWyYzxcL3c
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 13, 2025
His quest fulfilled? Not quite. There was one final flip of the narrative, with a five-footer slipping agonisingly past at the 18th to condemn him to a play-off. He kissed Erica and Poppy on his walk past, but puffed out his cheeks as if sensing the worst. Surely the nightmare of the near-miss would floor him, emboldening Rose, fresh from a 66 that included 10 birdies, to put him away?
It was wise not to make concrete predictions. He continued to confound, unleashing a sumptuous drive up the last even with his mind scrambled. Where Rose arrowed his approach to 10ft, McIlroy put his to within four, stroking in the putt that he would have mentally rehearsed a million times. Once an elusive vision, it was now a reality, willed into existence by his sheer bloody-mindedness. It was a day to confirm McIlroy, in all his endless complexity, as a sportsman for the ages.
Top Masters win
It can feel at the Masters as if there is almost celestial scripting at work. Of the four majors, it produces arguably the highest calibre of champion, bestowing Green Jackets on players in rough proportion to their place in the golfing firmament: six for Jack Nicklaus, five for Tiger Woods, four for Arnold Palmer. Now, after an agonising 11-year wait for his career Grand Slam, we can at last add Rory McIlroy to the list.
The crucible of Masters Sunday is so daunting, so suffocating, that only the most resilient souls prevail. At 7.17pm local time, McIlroy finally did so, after a round even Augusta chairman Fred Ridley admitted the patrons would never forget.
5. Tiger Woods, 2005
The galleries were rather larger when Woods sank the most outrageous chip of all, judging an effort from the back of the 16th green to such perfection that the ball hesitated for several seconds on the edge of the cup, showing off the Nike swoosh, before finally falling. Cue pandemonium.
4. Gene Sarazen, 1935
His “shot heard around the world” might be steeped in sepia – so long ago that even the late Dan Jenkins, a veteran of 67 Masters, could not claim to have attended – but it still merits a place in the top five Augusta wins. With Sarazen pondering his club selection in the middle of the 15th fairway, Walter Hagen shouted out: “Hurry up, will you? I’ve got a date tonight.” Settling eventually on a four-wood, he fashioned a spectacular response to Hagen’s cheek, holing the shot for an albatross.
3. Jack Nicklaus, 1986
The cause had appeared forlorn: in his mid-40s, he was far adrift of the younger stars, led by the swashbuckling Seve Ballesteros. But over the closing 10 holes on Sunday, the Golden Bear went on the prowl, setting off roar after roar in the canyons between the pines. The yellow shirt, the checked trousers, the raised left arm as he realised his treacherous downhill putt at the 17th was dropping: all of it is seared in the collective memory.
2. Tiger Woods, 2019
A sprawling epic of a performance that defied all logic. In the 11 years since his 14th major title, he had gone through a crash with a fire hydrant, therapy for sex addiction, the disintegration of his marriage, the chipping yips, not to mention enough ailments and injuries to fill an edition of The Lancet. But on a historic Sunday, he rekindled the magic one more time. Having let slip to Faldo that he thought he was finished as a competitive golfer, he proved he was anything but, winning a major for the first time without the 54-hole lead.
1. Rory McIlroy, 2025
It felt almost like a Rocky walk-on as McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau bounded to the first tee, ready for a defining duel. To see the crowds lined 10 deep beside the old oak tree bordering the clubhouse was to be reminded of the timeless Augusta days. Over the next five hours, the theatre fulfilled every expectation and more.
At 14 under par as he walked off the 10th green, McIlroy dared to imagine he had this wrapped up. But 10 birdies for Justin Rose, plus a bizarre misjudgment as McIlroy’s pitch to the 13th splashed into Rae’s Creek, set up a denouement so tense you could barely watch.
In the end, McIlroy’s astounding mental fortitude in producing three of the shots of his life made this the finest Masters win of all, when you considered all the heartbreak and self-doubt that had gone before.
Poised to make eagle. Rory McIlroy goes for glory on No. 15. #themasterspic.twitter.com/hAM0zxnkM7
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 13, 2025
Have your say
The reaction, when it finally came for Rory McIlroy, was a convulsion, a sense of catharsis so overwhelming that it left him physically heaving. His face puce and his body shaking, he was so spent by the time he holed his four-foot birdie putt at the 18th for a first Green Jacket that he crumpled to the ground.
At last, the boy from Holywood has his Hollywood ending. For so long tormented here at Augusta, chasing the white whale of a career Grand Slam, he expiated the curse in thrilling, bewildering, stomach-churning style, completing the full set of golf’s greatest prizes by rallying from every improbable setback.
Truly, this was sport at its most monumental.
Rory McIlroy gave everything. #themasterspic.twitter.com/Iv38QeVTbm
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 13, 2025
Resilience feels inadequate as a description. This was sporting courage at its finest, a definitive rebuke to the idea that McIlroy could never overcome his fragility in sight of the finishing line. He had let so many auspicious positions slip since his last major triumph in 2014, but this was one chance he refused to relinquish.
Far from quailing under pressure, he strode towards it. He did not simply have to win the Masters, the one prize he had coveted above all else. He had to win it three times over, suppressing the malevolent voices inside his head by going on the attack under the greatest strain. At the 15th, the 17th, and again at the 18th, in a play-off you feared he would lose in his addled state to Justin Rose, he conjured golf from the gods.
With the light fading across Augusta National, McIlroy, resplendent in green, struggled to absorb the magnitude of the moment. First his voice quavered in the Butler Cabin, as he reflected on the sacrifices made in Northern Ireland by his mother Rosie and father Gerry to put him on this path to global glory, one of only six men in the sport ever to grasp the Grand Slam. And again he became tearful at the victory presentation as he caught sight of Poppy, his four-year-old daughter, watching alongside his wife, Erica. “Never give up on your dreams,” he told her.
The image of McIlroy as a fragile soul has been shattered. He is emotional, certainly. But as a competitor, McIlroy has shown beyond doubt that the frailties are exaggerated, holding his nerve just as history suggested he would wilt. He had suffered the most bruising back-nine ordeal, watching a five-shot lead dissolve in 25 minutes. Still he rallied, repeatedly, as if resolving that this time he would script a different ending. “I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” he said. “But the way I responded to the setbacks, I couldn’t be prouder of myself.”
The adoration greeting McIlroy on his walk back to the clubhouse was sincere. There is a reason why he is the most compelling player of his era, and it is because he is always utterly authentic. Unafraid to weep or to show how all-consuming the effort has been, he combines his phenomenal talent on the course with a deep thoughtfulness off it, articulating all the psychological turmoil that it has taken to join golf’s most exclusive gang of six.
When asked about the end of his 11-year major drought, he grinned wryly and said: “More like 14.” It was in 2011, after all, that he had leant in despair on his club to conceal his anguish, having hooked another drive deep into the Augusta pines to surrender a four-shot lead. Now, in 2025, he has the perfect counterpoint to that heartbreak, a victory as stirring and as rapturously received as any witnessed on these Arcadian fairways.
Even Fred Ridley, the Augusta chairman, acknowledged it was perhaps the finest Masters Sunday of all. And the drama sprang from a twist in the story that nobody had seen coming. Having walked off the 10th green five clear, daring to imagine that he could coast home, McIlroy descended into the type of tailspin he had dreaded.
The warning was sounded by his second to the 11th, which he squirted out beneath the overhanging branches and almost pulled straight into the water guarding the green. The ball stopped inches from the edge, limiting the damage to a single dropped shot. A reprieve?
Not if the next 25 minutes were any gauge, as the full mayhem of the Masters engulfed him. For the first time all tournament, McIlroy chose conservatism over attack, laying up at the long 13th as he looked to defend his advantage. Why, at this of all moments, did he not back his instinct? Only he could explain the inexplicable, watching with horror as his pitch, supposed to be the safe option, bounced right and dribbled into Rae’s Creek. A double-bogey ensued, Rose reached 11 under up ahead at the 16th, and in a heartbeat his cushion had vanished.
The bounce in his step gave way to bleakness. Where once he had been striping every drive down the middle, he began second-guessing himself, pushing his tee-shot at the 14th into the pine needles. Usually a wizard at these steepling escape shots, he looked helpless as this effort trickled off the front apron, leaving him a fiendish up-and-down that he could not convert. Where was his psychologist, Dr Bob Rotella, when he needed him?
There is nowhere quite like the Masters for making even the finest players feel hideously alone. All you are allowed, once you pass inside the ropes, is your caddie. For all the qualities of Harry Diamond, McIlroy’s childhood friend, there was little the man on the bag could say to soothe him in this situation. McIlroy could only rely on his own judgment, and as he sized up his second at the 15th, the equation would have shredded the nerves of a lesser mortal. To go for it was to risk another ghastly splash. To lay up was to risk retreating into his shell.
In the end, McIlroy gambled everything, arcing a beautiful high draw to within 10 feet of the flag. He missed the putt but still refused to compromise, producing the same soaring right-to-left flight with an eight-iron en route to a birdie at the 17th.
With a birdie on No. 17, Rory McIlroy takes the outright lead. #themasterspic.twitter.com/pWyYzxcL3c
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 13, 2025
His quest fulfilled? Not quite. There was one final flip of the narrative, with a five-footer slipping agonisingly past at the 18th to condemn him to a play-off. He kissed Erica and Poppy on his walk past, but puffed out his cheeks as if sensing the worst. Surely the nightmare of the near-miss would floor him, emboldening Rose, fresh from a 66 that included 10 birdies, to put him away?
It was wise not to make concrete predictions. He continued to confound, unleashing a sumptuous drive up the last even with his mind scrambled. Where Rose arrowed his approach to 10ft, McIlroy put his to within four, stroking in the putt that he would have mentally rehearsed a million times. Once an elusive vision, it was now a reality, willed into existence by his sheer bloody-mindedness. It was a day to confirm McIlroy, in all his endless complexity, as a sportsman for the ages.
Top Masters win
It can feel at the Masters as if there is almost celestial scripting at work. Of the four majors, it produces arguably the highest calibre of champion, bestowing Green Jackets on players in rough proportion to their place in the golfing firmament: six for Jack Nicklaus, five for Tiger Woods, four for Arnold Palmer. Now, after an agonising 11-year wait for his career Grand Slam, we can at last add Rory McIlroy to the list.
The crucible of Masters Sunday is so daunting, so suffocating, that only the most resilient souls prevail. At 7.17pm local time, McIlroy finally did so, after a round even Augusta chairman Fred Ridley admitted the patrons would never forget.
5. Tiger Woods, 2005
The galleries were rather larger when Woods sank the most outrageous chip of all, judging an effort from the back of the 16th green to such perfection that the ball hesitated for several seconds on the edge of the cup, showing off the Nike swoosh, before finally falling. Cue pandemonium.
4. Gene Sarazen, 1935
His “shot heard around the world” might be steeped in sepia – so long ago that even the late Dan Jenkins, a veteran of 67 Masters, could not claim to have attended – but it still merits a place in the top five Augusta wins. With Sarazen pondering his club selection in the middle of the 15th fairway, Walter Hagen shouted out: “Hurry up, will you? I’ve got a date tonight.” Settling eventually on a four-wood, he fashioned a spectacular response to Hagen’s cheek, holing the shot for an albatross.
3. Jack Nicklaus, 1986
The cause had appeared forlorn: in his mid-40s, he was far adrift of the younger stars, led by the swashbuckling Seve Ballesteros. But over the closing 10 holes on Sunday, the Golden Bear went on the prowl, setting off roar after roar in the canyons between the pines. The yellow shirt, the checked trousers, the raised left arm as he realised his treacherous downhill putt at the 17th was dropping: all of it is seared in the collective memory.
2. Tiger Woods, 2019
A sprawling epic of a performance that defied all logic. In the 11 years since his 14th major title, he had gone through a crash with a fire hydrant, therapy for sex addiction, the disintegration of his marriage, the chipping yips, not to mention enough ailments and injuries to fill an edition of The Lancet. But on a historic Sunday, he rekindled the magic one more time. Having let slip to Faldo that he thought he was finished as a competitive golfer, he proved he was anything but, winning a major for the first time without the 54-hole lead.
1. Rory McIlroy, 2025
It felt almost like a Rocky walk-on as McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau bounded to the first tee, ready for a defining duel. To see the crowds lined 10 deep beside the old oak tree bordering the clubhouse was to be reminded of the timeless Augusta days. Over the next five hours, the theatre fulfilled every expectation and more.
At 14 under par as he walked off the 10th green, McIlroy dared to imagine he had this wrapped up. But 10 birdies for Justin Rose, plus a bizarre misjudgment as McIlroy’s pitch to the 13th splashed into Rae’s Creek, set up a denouement so tense you could barely watch.
In the end, McIlroy’s astounding mental fortitude in producing three of the shots of his life made this the finest Masters win of all, when you considered all the heartbreak and self-doubt that had gone before.
Poised to make eagle. Rory McIlroy goes for glory on No. 15. #themasterspic.twitter.com/hAM0zxnkM7
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 13, 2025
Have your say
